April 2010 Bulletin

Greetings from the Centre for Internet and Society! We bring you updates of our research, events and news for the month of April 2010.

News Updates

Worries voiced over ID ProjectThe Government of India's Unique Identification (UID) Project came under flak at a workshop organised jointly by the Citizen Action Forum (CAF), the People's Union of Civil Liberties - Karnataka, the Alternative Law Forum and the Centre for Internet and Society - An article in The Hindu - 17th April.http://cis-india.org/news/worries-voiced-over-id-project

UID: A debate on the Fundamental RightsUID: A debate on the Fundamental Rights - was jointly organized by the Citizen Action Forum, People's Union for Civil Liberties - Karnataka, Alternative Law Forum and the Centre for Internet and Society on April 16th at IAT, Queens Road, Bangalore - An article in the Prajavani news paper - April 17th. http://cis-india.org/news/uid-a-debate-on-fundamental-rights

UID is an invasion of Privacy: Experts The Nandan Nilekani headed Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) came in for much criricism at the first of a series of debates on the issue organised in the city on Friday - Deccan Chronicle, April 17th.http://cis-india.org/news/uid-is-an-invasion-of-privacy-experts

Experts debate on UID and rights Bangalore, Apr 16, DHNS: A debate on ‘UID and Fundamental Rights’ organised by several city-based organisations, discussed the social, ethical issues, economic and legal issues that accompanies the UID. http://cis-india.org/news/experts-debate-on-uid-and-rights

Digital Natives Research Project Coordinator The Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, in collaboration with Hivos Netherlands, is looking for a Research Project Coordinator to help develop a knowledge network and coordinate international workshops for the project "Digital Natives with a Cause?" http://cis-india.org/news/research-coordinator

Expel or not? That is the question The decision of an international school to expel 14 students for their alleged ‘promiscuous’ behaviour has led to much debate and discussion. http://cis-india.org/news/expel-or-not

Research

Critical Point of View: Videos The Second event for the Critical Point of View reader on Wikipedia was held in Amsterdam, by the Institute of Network Cultures and the Centre for Internet and Society. A wide range of scholars, academics, researchers, practitioners, artists and users came together to discuss questions on design, analytics, access, education, theory, art, history and processes of knowledge production. The videos for the full event are now available for free viewing and dissemination.

Colour Me Political What are the tools that Digital Natives use to mobilise groups towards a particular cause? How do they engage with crises in their immediate environments? Are they using their popular social networking sites and web 2.0 applications for merely entertainment? Or are these tools actually helping them to re-articulate the realm of the political? Nishant Shah looks at the recent Facebook Colour Meme to see how new forms of political participation and engagement are being initiated by young people across the world.http://cis-india.org/research/dn/dn2

Meet the Web 2.0 Suicide MachineDigital Natives live their lives differently. But sometimes, they also die their lives differently! What happens when we die online? Can the digital avatar die? What is digital life? The Web 2.0 Suicide machine that has now popularly been called the 'anti-social-networking' application brings some of these questions to the fore. As a part of the Hivos-CIS "Digital Natives with a Cause?" research programme, Nishant Shah writes about how Life on the Screen is much more than just a series of games. http://cis-india.org/research/dn/dn1

Digital Natives with a Cause? Digital Natives With A Cause? - a product of the Hivos-CIS collaboration charts the scholarship and practice of youth and technology with a specific attention for developing countries to create a framework that consolidates existing paradigms and informs further research and intervention within diverse contexts and cultures. http://cis-india.org/research/dn/dnrep

Web Accessibility as a Government Mandate?Is Web accessibility just a Government Mandate? Should private sites be ignored? Wesolowski examines this in light of the steps taken by ictQATAR to make its website accessible to W3C standards, and hopes that Qatar and eventually all other Arab nations will follow suit and make Web accessibility much more of a mandate. http://cis-india.org/advocacy/accessibility/blog/web-accessibility-government-mandate

Does the Social Web need a Googopoly?While the utility of the new social tool Buzz is still under question, the bold move into social space taken last week by the Google Buzz team has Gmail users questioning privacy implications of the new feature. In this post, I posit that Buzz highlights two privacy challenges of the social web. First, the application has sidestepped the consensual and contextual qualities desirable of social spaces. Secondly, Google’s move highlights the increasingly competitive and convergent nature of the social media landscape. http://cis-india.org/advocacy/openness/blog/does-the-social-web-need-a-googopoly

The (in)Visible Subject: Power, Privacy and Social Networking In this entry, I will argue that the interplay between privacy and power on social network sites works ultimately to subject individuals to the gaze of others, or to alternatively render them invisible. Individual choices concerning privacy preferences must, therefore, be informed by the intrinsic relationship which exists between publicness/privateness and subjectivity/obscurity. http://cis-india.org/advocacy/openness/blog/the-in-visible-subject-power-privacy-and-social-networking

Internet Governance

Does the Safe-Harbor Program Adequately Address Third Parties Online? While many citizens outside of the US and EU benefit from the data privacy provisions the Safe Harbor Program, it remains unclear how successfully the program can govern privacy practices when third-parties continue to gain more rights over personal data. Using Facebook as a site of analysis, I will attempt to shed light on the deficiencies of the framework for addressing the complexity of data flows in the online ecosystem. http://cis-india.org/advocacy/igov/blog/does-the-safe-harbor-program-adequately-address-third-parties-online

Report on the Fourth Internet Governance Forum for Commonwealth IGF This report by Pranesh Prakash reflects on the question of how useful is the IGF in the light of meetings on the themes of intellectual property, freedom of speech and privacy. http://cis-india.org/advocacy/igov/blog/report-on-fourth-IGF

Other Advocacy

Maps for Making Change Wiki Now Open to the Public Since December 2009, CIS has been coordinating and nurturing the Maps for Making Change project, organised in collaboration with Tactical Tech. During the past four months, participants have been on a challenging yet fertile and inspiring journey that is now slowly coming to an end. Would you like to know more about what has happened in the time that has passed? The Maps for Making Change wiki is a good place to start. http://cis-india.org/advocacy/others/maps-for-making-change-wiki-now-open-to-the-public

Support Us

You may donate online via Instamojo. Or, write a cheque in favour of ‘The Centre for Internet and Society’ and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd ‘C’ Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru, 560071.

Request for Collaboration

We invite researchers, practitioners, artists, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to engage with us on topics related internet and society, and improve our collective understanding of this field. To discuss such possibilities, please write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil[at]cis-india[dot]org or Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director, at sumandro[at]cis-india[dot]org, with an indication of the form and the content of the collaboration you might be interested in.

In general, we offer financial support for collaborative/invited works only through public calls.

About Us

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfiguration of social processes and structures through the internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa.

Through its diverse initiatives, CIS explores, intervenes in, and advances contemporary discourse and practices around internet, technology and society in India, and elsewhere.